Guppy? Hedges?
Sorry for revisiting the London Mayoral theme - it's becoming something of a theme here - but that's partly because it's becoming so interesting. In an article in the Guardian Ken has an extended attempt at attacking Tories in general and Boris in particular, and it's the angle of attack that is so fascinating. In a classic 'play the man not the ball' Livingstone goes onto what he must think is a winner:
Boris Johnson, is in an extraordinary position. He has advocated a policy of the public individually intervening against yobs. But this contrast sharply with his own recorded behaviour. When approached by Darius Guppy, a person later convicted of fraud, to aid in the beating up of a journalist - Stuart Collier - Boris Johnson failed to report this to the police, discussed how badly the journalist would be beaten and agreed to supply his address. Can he explain how anyone who did this can present themselves as a candidate in favour of law and order in London?
But is this a wise line of attack? Boris does after all have a perfectly credible defence, as outlined by the man who actually made the recording that first brought this matter to light, and holds no particular torch for him:
I don't especially support Johnson, though I loathe Livingstone, but I'd like to see a fair contest. So let me just explain Johnson's role, as far as I can make it out from the tapes I made at the time.
He didn't know the heavies were planning to rip Guppy off. It must have seemed a serious plot. Guppy made it clear that he could try other means of finding the journalist's address. Johnson assured him he didn't have to - and did absolutely nothing at all to find it himself. I actually had that confirmed by Clive Goodman, the now disgraced formed News of the World royal correspondent who listened to the tape. Johnson said he would approach a specific third party. He specifically didn't. The only conclusion I can draw is that he was trying to make sure Guppy didn't manage to have the man attacked. Rather, he was stalling, waiting for Guppy's attention span to expire - a safe bet for those who knew him well.
Not entirely a clean bill of health, but neither an open and shut case of perversion of the course of justice either. And is Livingstone wise to bring up matters of character on violence and helping the police? The matter was dropped and no charges were eventually bought, but cast your mind back 5 years to the summer of 2002 and a birthday party...
When the front door was shut, said Mr Hedges, "Ken wanted to get back into the party. He was uncontrollable and went up to the door and was hammering on it. He was going ballistic and we were trying to calm him down and restrain him. We were grabbing on to his arms and trying to hold him. The last memory I have is of Ken’s arm lunging towards me."
Mr Hedges said that his next memory was coming to, briefly, in the ambulance and then again after he had an X-ray at the Whittington hospital.
Hedges later went further in his allegations: Livingstone was behaving like a drunken lout, physically abusing his pregnant partner, making me fall over a wall and then using the resources of the Greater London Authority to try to cover it up. I'm not entirely convinced that he's in the best position to be throwing stones on this one.
Boris Johnson, is in an extraordinary position. He has advocated a policy of the public individually intervening against yobs. But this contrast sharply with his own recorded behaviour. When approached by Darius Guppy, a person later convicted of fraud, to aid in the beating up of a journalist - Stuart Collier - Boris Johnson failed to report this to the police, discussed how badly the journalist would be beaten and agreed to supply his address. Can he explain how anyone who did this can present themselves as a candidate in favour of law and order in London?
But is this a wise line of attack? Boris does after all have a perfectly credible defence, as outlined by the man who actually made the recording that first brought this matter to light, and holds no particular torch for him:
I don't especially support Johnson, though I loathe Livingstone, but I'd like to see a fair contest. So let me just explain Johnson's role, as far as I can make it out from the tapes I made at the time.
He didn't know the heavies were planning to rip Guppy off. It must have seemed a serious plot. Guppy made it clear that he could try other means of finding the journalist's address. Johnson assured him he didn't have to - and did absolutely nothing at all to find it himself. I actually had that confirmed by Clive Goodman, the now disgraced formed News of the World royal correspondent who listened to the tape. Johnson said he would approach a specific third party. He specifically didn't. The only conclusion I can draw is that he was trying to make sure Guppy didn't manage to have the man attacked. Rather, he was stalling, waiting for Guppy's attention span to expire - a safe bet for those who knew him well.
Not entirely a clean bill of health, but neither an open and shut case of perversion of the course of justice either. And is Livingstone wise to bring up matters of character on violence and helping the police? The matter was dropped and no charges were eventually bought, but cast your mind back 5 years to the summer of 2002 and a birthday party...
When the front door was shut, said Mr Hedges, "Ken wanted to get back into the party. He was uncontrollable and went up to the door and was hammering on it. He was going ballistic and we were trying to calm him down and restrain him. We were grabbing on to his arms and trying to hold him. The last memory I have is of Ken’s arm lunging towards me."
Mr Hedges said that his next memory was coming to, briefly, in the ambulance and then again after he had an X-ray at the Whittington hospital.
Hedges later went further in his allegations: Livingstone was behaving like a drunken lout, physically abusing his pregnant partner, making me fall over a wall and then using the resources of the Greater London Authority to try to cover it up. I'm not entirely convinced that he's in the best position to be throwing stones on this one.
Labels: Boris, Livingstone, London Mayor
posted by Tim J at
7:17 pm
1 Comments:
The highly dubious source upon which you have based your posting is one Peter Risdon, a failed, multiple-offending petty criminal and registered police informer.
For evidence, see: www.nobodylikesagrass.com
In particular it is the stupidity with which he constructs his lies that is so astonishing. See, for example Exhibits 48 and 49 on the above site. Or exhibit 53 where he is successfully sued by Guppy for libel for having come up with some cock and bull story about a paint stripper attack.
And in his posting on this site regarding the tapes of Boris Johnson he is caught lying yet again. He states for example that his business partner, Tom McLaine, secretly intended to rip Guppy off rather than beat up the journalist in question. See Exhibits 2 + 3, a sworn affidavit McLaine himself, who has a very different take on things. Here he confirms that Guppy wanted to have the journalist beaten up for attempting to smear members of his family, that he was fond of Guppy and Marsh, that he loathed Risdon for being such a pathological liar and for having ripped him off and stolen from his company, and that he had nothing but contempt for Risdon who could never stick to a project and see it through, so short was his attention span.
Peter Risdon’s fantasies extended to building a “huge criminal empire” which, in his own words, “would have branches as far away as … Greece!” This, before he branched out into selling chickens.
The above site also shows how:
1. Peter Risdon participated in a fiasco of an armed robbery in Scotland
2. Peter Risdon participated in a mortgage scam in Scotland
3. Peter Risdon participated in a high profile gems heist in New York in 1990 after which he turned police informer
4. Peter Risdon participated in an attempted insurance fraud involving a large uncut diamond for which he was arrested and charged
5. Peter Risdon was also arrested and charged under interception of telecommunications legislation in Britain in 1992 (for bugging his clients’ premises)
6. Peter Risdon's partner states in the above website in an affidavit that Risdon would regularly plant listening devices in his clients' premises in order to glean information so that he could blackmail them subsequently. (He ran a small security firm at the time). And this is exactly what happened with the Boris Johnson tapes. Risdon offered to sweep Guppy’s home for bugs but instead planted listening devices. At first the tapes were worth nothing but as the people speaking on them became more high profile he went round Fleet Street offering to sell them to the highest bidder until they were eventually bought by the News of the World
7. Peter Risdon regularly stole from his clients and defrauded his creditors in relation to two companies that he ran and that went into compulsory liquidation.
8. Peter Risdon scammed the British Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise (VAT) in relation to two companies he ran that went into liquidation. He was prosecuted by the Department of Trade and Industry and was disqualified from being a company director.
If he was even remotely intelligent the man would be dangerous.
A word of advice: check out your ‘sources’ next time.
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